Editor's Note Summer 2009

Anyone who has walked across the Vermont State House lawn in Montpelier knows it is different from any other lawn in the state. A wooden statue reputed to be Ceres, the Greek goddess of agriculture, stares down from the State House dome, appearing to sow seeds on the grass. A marble Ethan Allen standing at the State House door glares with fiery eyes at all who pass. A stately walkway guides visitors to an imposing granite building where important (and sometimes infuriating) decisions are made. No other place in Vermont feels so formal and heavy with history.

Backyard Poultry

Chickens are the new black. Like many things once associated with poverty and largely left behind when industrial goods became impossibly cheap (whole wheat bread, hand-knit sweaters, walking to work), backyard poultry has become fashionable. People want to save money and to feel more connected to the source of their food. And if there’s one sure way to feel connected to something, it’s by having to constantly feed it and clean up its poop. Ask any parent.

Drink Local

My husband and I love beer. We used to be wine drinkers, until we discovered that a well-chosen beer actually pairs better with most of our meals than wine. He was also a homebrewer for years (my job was capping the bottles) until his recent recruitment into the ranks of the professional brewers at Otter Creek Brewing in Middlebury.

One Acre Grows a Long Way

Here are some facts about an acre. It is 43,560 square feet. It’s about 40 percent of a hectare, the metric system’s equivalent of an acre. It can be estimated by picturing a football field without the end zones. Most U.S. agricultural production takes place on a much, much grander scale—an average of 440 acres, to be exact—but to many Americans, having even a single acre of productive land seems like a pretty good deal.

Grocery Stores Taking Stock of Local Foods

Pyramids of green apples and red tomatoes elbow each other for space. Not far away is the deli, where wedges of cheese mingle with lunch meat and sliced bread. Shoppers meander through aisles of canned soup and boxed cereal, and navigate a maze of produce and dairy. The lights are bright but not overly so. This is, of course, a supermarket, and the size and ambience of these chain grocery stores is the opposite of what you find at small neighborhood farmers’ markets, where Vermonters tend to shop for locally produced food.

A Harvest Wedding

Bowls overflowing with local blueberries, plates of Neighborly Farms and Jasper Hill cheese, fresh bread made by Red Hen Bakery, plus sunflowers from Gardens at Seven Gables (Barre) and Fool’s Farm Flowers (Hardwick) lining the path to a clearing filled with family, friends, and—at the end of the grassy aisle—each other (and our dog, Ella). This is how we remember our wedding day last year. After a very rainy July, the land around us was bursting with green beans, red peppers, purple delphinium, and green hillsides as far as the eye could see.

Rutland Area Farm & Food Link

What started out as an economic analysis of agriculture in Rutland County has become a movement to preserve and grow a sustainable food system. More than five years ago, as an employee of the Rutland Regional Planning Commission, India Burnett Farmer collected a group of people passionate about agriculture in the area to get a read on the industry. At the time, a pervasive melancholy attitude about the future of farming in the Rutland area had settled into the soil.

Farming & Feasting with the Robinsons: Summer

When George Gershwin wrote “Summertime, and the living is easy...” one gets the impression he wasn’t really thinking of the farming population. In the words of Ann Robinson Minturn in August 1862, “there be those whose souls rejoice in the yellowness of their butter, the whiteness of their bread, and the exceeding cleanliness of their houses... to sit with the hands folded is an abomination–and such women should I think be farmers wives.”

Farmers' Kitchen—Goat Goodies

People often ask us how many calories are in our goat milk caramel. My answer is none. Which is a complete and total lie, but I figure if you’re going to eat it you probably don’t want to know the exact number of calories in it. What you might want to know instead is that the caramel is made from fresh goat milk produced on my family’s small farm in Brookfield. We take care of a goat herd of 50 fiercely independent and utterly adorable goats. We milk 22 does and have a family of babies, bucks, and teenagers who complete the herd.

Last Morsel—Visionary “food policy”

Back in 1988, the 6th grade class at Main Street Middle School in Montpelier worked on a visionary “food policy” for their city. With the help of folks at Food Works, a nonprofit that connects children and communities to local food sources, the students produced a document that included this final page. It shows that long before today’s local food movement, Vermont children were envisioning a food-centered future.

Sylvia Fagin

Sylvia Fagin writes about food and agriculture from her home in Montpelier. To make sure that Vic, Marianne and the Bobs were making wine correctly, she recently took a tour of the Calchaquíes Valley winemaking region of northwestern Argentina. She is happy to report that they are right on track. Contact Sylvia via Twitter: @sylviafagin.

Written by Sylvia Fagin | April 04, 2013

I was drinking a glass of wine with a colleague when she told me that she and her husband make wine. In a garage. With friends. I was intrigued. I know plenty of people who brew beer in their bathtub (so to speak) but I’d never met anyone who makes wine at home. When I expressed interest, she invited me to join their next winemaking season. So I put a reminder in my Google calendar and eight months later, voila: “Call Marianne about winemaking” popped up.

Written by Sylvia Fagin | December 01, 2011

As cold and flu season approaches, health-conscious Vermonters are reaching back through the ages to brew kombucha, a fermented beverage with a unique taste and widely touted benefits to the immune system. Although kombucha’s benefits are of use all year long, the start of a Vermont winter seems a good time to investigate this intriguing drink.

A South Royalton company envisions a rebirth of Vermont dairy through small-scale pasteurization

Written by Sylvia Fagin | June 01, 2011

Local food and slow food frequently mean small food: small farms, small producers, small quantities. The English language happens to provide a nice term for very small: micro. So it follows that the antidote to a huge, consolidated milk production system might be a micro dairy.

Written by Sylvia Fagin | June 01, 2009

Pyramids of green apples and red tomatoes elbow each other for space. Not far away is the deli, where wedges of cheese mingle with lunch meat and sliced bread. Shoppers meander through aisles of canned soup and boxed cereal, and navigate a maze of produce and dairy. The lights are bright but not overly so. This is, of course, a supermarket, and the size and ambience of these chain grocery stores is the opposite of what you find at small neighborhood farmers’ markets, where Vermonters tend to shop for locally produced food.

Written by Sylvia Fagin | March 01, 2009

Jack Lazor is the first to admit he’s got his fingers in a lot of pies. He says so with a chuckle, his gentle eyes sparkling like the bright mid–afternoon sun reflecting off newly fallen snow. Among his “pies” are grain–growing experiments to find varieties that thrive in Vermont, infrastructure development for the processing and storage of staple foods like beans and cooking oils, and a plethora of workshops in which he shares what he’s learned in his 30 years of farming.

Written by Sylvia Fagin | December 01, 2008

What’s a community to do when an essential institution goes missing? The village of Williamsville, northwest of Brattleboro, lost its historic general store two years ago when its owner decided to close its doors. Residents missed the store, and when they convened a meeting to discuss the loss, more than 40 people attended—a big meeting for tiny Williamsville, according to resident Dan Kinoy, who participated.

Contributing Authors Summer ' 09

What we do

A quarterly magazine devoted to covering local food, sustainable farming, and the many people building the Vermont food system.

Vermont's Local Banquet Magazine illuminates the connections between local food and Vermont communities. Our stories, interviews, and essays reveal how Vermont residents are building their local food systems, how farmers are faring in a time of great opportunity and challenge, and how Vermont’s agricultural landscape is changing as the localvore movement shapes what is grown and raised here.